Johannesburg Public Library
"New Library" (1935)
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| Country | South Africa |
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| Type | Municipal Public Library |
| Established | 1935 |
| Location | Cnr. Albertina Sisulu Streets & Fraser Street |
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Coordinates: 26°12′17″S 28°02′19″E / 26.204789°S 28.038587°E
The Johannesburg City Library is situated in the central business district of the City of Johannesburg. The Library is located in an Italianate building designed by John Perry which first opened in 1935. It has over 1.5-million books and items in its collection and more than 250 000 members.
In 1889, a group of prominent Johannesburg residents met to discuss the formation of a public library and eventually formed a committee to raise funds, find a building and order the books. With the books ordered from London, the library opened in June 1890 with the committee members serving as librarians but by February 1891, the library obtained its first librarian, Robert C Hemming. It started as a subscription library, its members paying a subscription to use the facilities. In 1894, the library received a grant from the South African Republic government of £250 though two-thirds of the donation was to be spent on Dutch books though the library was kept funded by means of balls, lectures and donations from the Randlords.
The first library was a corrugated iron structure built in 1893 known as the Old Church Building. In 1898, a new structure on Kerk Street was built for the library consisting of three floors with shops on the ground level, the library in the middle and dwelling rooms on the third that allowed rents to fund the buildings mortgage. In October 1899, the Second Anglo-Boer War broke out and the librarian and most of the English inhabitants of Johannesburg fled the Transvaal but a Boer burgher was asked to take care of the library and when the British under Lord Roberts retook the town in 1900, he reopened it and ran until the librarian could return.
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